I'm sure somebody at Microsoft is annoyed at this, but the Skype devs are probably relieved to stop supporting it. It's easy to forget that WP7 was essentially a 1.0 product. It was a restart from Windows Mobile 6.5, and very limited versus concurrent Android and iOS. With WP8 and 8.1 they've been getting up to speed nicely. I still want to see better third party Bluetooth support for devs, though.

They stopped being shocked just after Microsoft announced there were no software upgrades from WP7 to the next version, that instead all they would get largely is a skin that made it look like WP 8.

1. MS intentionally hung a bunch of people buying their phones out to dry by giving a "no comment" when asked if WP 8 would be available as an upgrade to current phones.2. Huge surprise that sales took a nosedive because all the phones with WP being sold were being deadended in a few months [several months afte

Considering that the only equipment that would be 'stuck' on 10.5 is on PowerPC, and the switch to Intel took place in 2006, I don't really care. Hardware has changed so much since then. Or have you tried using a G5 PowerMac in the modern world? Anything that's GPU accelerated (like browsers), HD video, or Javascript heavy is going to have issues.

This. There is really *no* excuse to still be running 10.5, which has been unsupported for three years, on hardware that has been deprecated for eight. These are systems that are connected to the internet, for fuck's sake. That's just criminally negligent. We had this conversation the other day.

Microsoft is flipping Apple's support ecosystem the bird and encouraging bad behavior in Apple's end users. A dick move, IMO. The few idiots affected will be pleased in the short term, but what they really need is so

You seem to be confusing two totally different things. Mac users had a perfectly working version of Skype. Microsoft broke what had already been working, by changing the network protocol and turning off the existing servers. Skype worked fine on Mac, then one day Microsoft starting rejecting EXISTING clients, and it's still broken today.

You seem to be confusing that vs writing NEW versions of applications for unpatched operating systems. Apple is saying "if you want the new features in new versions of the application software, download the OS update." What Microsoft did was cut off existing versions that worked just fine.

Another point that may be confusing if you're unfamiliar of anything outside of Microsoft's ass crack - updating OSX means downloading a free update, not paying hundreds of dollars and completely wiping the machine like you tend to do in Windows. My 2008 Mac Pro has the latest version of OSX and the Apple applications. I didn't pay them a thousand dollars to update the OS, the Office suite, the mail client, etc. I just click "yes" to install the free update. It's not that hard.

You seem to be confusing two totally different things. Mac users had a perfectly working version of Skype. Microsoft broke what had already been working, by changing the network protocol and turning off the existing servers. Skype worked fine on Mac, then one day Microsoft starting rejecting EXISTING clients, and it's still broken today.

You seem to be confusing that vs writing NEW versions of applications for unpatched operating systems. Apple is saying "if you want the new features in new versions of the application software, download the OS update." What Microsoft did was cut off existing versions that worked just fine.

Another point that may be confusing if you're unfamiliar of anything outside of Microsoft's ass crack - updating OSX means downloading a free update, not paying hundreds of dollars and completely wiping the machine like you tend to do in Windows. My 2008 Mac Pro has the latest version of OSX and the Apple applications. I didn't pay them a thousand dollars to update the OS, the Office suite, the mail client, etc. I just click "yes" to install the free update. It's not that hard.

The upgrades from Leopard were (and are) not free. They were not thousand-dollar affairs, but the latest few iterations of OS X.x releases being free constitutes a switch in policy from Apple.

Customers can, as I did, upgrade from Leopard (2007) to the newest version at a cost of $0.Upgrading from Vista to Windows 8.1 would cost $120 - $320. (Plus the cost of upgrades to Outlook, etc.)

Customers could also choose to upgrade at each step, paying $30, $20, and $0 for Mac - a total of $50.With Windows, the analogous path would be Vista - Win7 - Win8 - Win8, which could cost over $800, depending on which edition of Windows. In what world

"Microsoft broke what had already been working, by changing the network protocol and turning off the existing servers."

If they have, then how can you explain that Skype on my old Symbian E72 still works (tested it today)? The installe, which I kept of course - never trust companies to keep such things around - is from 2010.

My 2008 Mac Pro has the latest version of OSX and the Apple applications.

My 2006 Macbook hasn't been eligible for an OS upgrade since Lion (3 versions ago). To upgrade to the latest OS means buying a new Macbook (Air) at or around $1000 with tax.

Meanwhile I can still purchase the full latest version of Windows for that computer for $120-200 depending on edition. I'd bet that any Intel version of Windows Microsoft releases in the next 10, possibly 15 years will still run on it.

For clarification, the system requirements for Windows 9 developer preview are already known, so the "next version of Windows" for which we don't know the minimum hardware requirements is Windows 10, correct?

It would be funny if instead of "10" they used the Roman numeral X for the Windows OS, so Windows OS X.

For clarification, the system requirements for Windows 9 developer preview are already known

There is no such thing as "Windows 9 developer preview". There's speculation that it will be called "Windows 9". There's speculation that it will have a developer preview. There's speculation about the system requirements. But that's all it is, speculation. No announcements and to my knowledge no leaks about any of those specific points have been made.

Until we see leaks or at least strong rumors by sources that have been correct in the past, nothing is "known". (Remember how many rumors we've had abou

Suck it up fanbois: Apple sucks farts off dead chickens. Their only game is to keep you on the re-purchase treadmill.

Yeah that must be why they're giving away free OS updates. Nothing says "re-purchase treadmill" like free updates. And every Mac with an 64-bit chips, going as far back as 2007 iMacs, will continue to be supported with new OS updates. If Apple was about what you claim why would a 7 year old system be able to get OS X 10.10?

And they've supported iPhones and iPads with OS for more than a year after stopping sales. Android manufacturers stop providing updates while still selling the product.

Yes, as old as 7 year old iMacs, 6 year old MacBooks, 5.5 year old MacBook Pros, all MacBook Airs, 5 year old Mac Minis and 6 year old Mac Pros. Basically anything far older than the Windows Phone 7 phones that Microsoft is not supporting.

That's not entirely true, you have to have a 64 bit boot loader to be able to run the latest and greatest OS X. The first generation of Intel Mac Pros had a 32 bit boot loader and are thus officially unable to run anything post Lion(there are workarounds however)

The only people who can't upgrade are people with PowerPC or someone with a 32-bit Mac. Basically a minuscule minority. It's no different than Itanium systems losing support from Microsoft in 2005. It's also vastly less worse than WP7 users who were denied the WP8 update when even the oldest phones were only 2 years old or if you happened to own something like a T-Mobile Vibrant like I did that never got Android updates from Samsung after only 1 year so people would buy an S2.

Oh, please. How many people are paying to run Skype on a system that can't or won't be upgraded to Snow Leopard? Supporting Leopard means that Microsoft can't use APIs released in the last 5 years. They probably have to support x86-32 or PPC processors (which is the reason most people on Leopard are still on Leopard). They have to use relatively ancient tools to compile the packages.

All that, or they can just decide to never, ever upgrade the underlying protocol to handle new security requirements or additi

Apple customers like the lack of support. It gets the ecosystem to move. Rather than sitting for a decade with little progress Apple announces something at WWDC and within about 2 years it is standard across the platform: bing, bang, done.

For me to bite the bullet and get an android phone.
No way am I going to get a windows phone again and risk it going out of support within a year or two.

Yeah, I definitely believe that this AC uses an old WP7 phone. They just exude credibility, and there's nothing fake or phony about their outrage whatsoever. Given that you can pick up an Android off Ebay for peanuts that will run circles around an old WP7 device and support a lot more apps to boot...

I am that AC, and I do use an old windows 7 phone.
I don't use e-bay and I'm not interested in using a second hand phone with who knows what done to it.
I've simply been putting off buying a new phone since it still did what I needed and I just haven't decided on what new phone to get.

WP7 came out almost three years ago. Good luck finding an Android phone supported for anywhere *near* that long! Most Android phones don't receive updates for even a full year. In fact, some of them ship with outdated OS versions and never even receive an update to the version that was current at their release (never mind the version that is current when they leave support). That means that apps targeting the latest APIs are very frequently unavailable.

I don't think Pidgin is available for game consoles. If the person with whom you're trying to communicate uses an Xbox One console, you have to use Skype because to my knowledge, Microsoft hasn't digitally signed the client for any competing service. And how well does Pidgin work when both sides are behind NAT?

I don't think any software vendor should be required to support software forever, but there is a difference between withdrawing support and disabling a product without ample prior warning. They blew the rollout, but it looks like they're going to make amends, at least for the Leopard crowd. Hopefully, they'll learn a thing or two about the value of good corporate communication as well.

Is there a reason it can't work on this platform?Yes.What's the reason?We don't want it to.Is there a TECHNICAL reason that it can't work on this platform?Yes.What's the reason.Technically, we don't want it to.Is there any reason, BESIDES your not wanting it to, that it can't work on these platform?Yes.What's the reason?Because if we don't want it to, remove the apps, and strip out support, it simply can't!

Take it from someone who had a WP7 phone for three years, and now has a WP8 phone: Skype never worked right on WP7 in the first place. It really shouldn't have been there to start with, but Microsoft couldn't have one of their most popular apps be a no-show on their mobile OS, so they put out a crippled mess that only served to piss off their users.

On WP8, Skype works just as it should, because WP8 is a completely different OS under the hood and can run the background processes necessary for it to function.

They will, e-mail received yesterday about my 808:
"Skype apps for Symbian are permanently retiring
We've noticed that you are, or previously were, signed into Skype on a Symbian phone, and we're sorry to inform you that we are now permanently retiring all Skype apps for Symbian phones. As a result, within the next few weeks, you'll no longer be able to sign in and use Skype on any Symbian phone.
You can still stay in touch with friends and family using Skype on an Android device, Nokia Lumia phone or de

More importantly, why is Skype *still* unable to support IPv6 addressing? Any device with IPv6 only can't run Skype, and no amount of NAT can fix it. Phone carriers fix it by giving IPv6 to the phone, and IPv4 to Skype that's natted within the phone to the IPv6, but that's impossible for people trying to run Skype on a desktop.

Microsoft is obviously done extracting the "value" of Skype for Lync. So why not just sell it off and let someone else support it? Or just close it now. Why force it into a pain